[	Tags	|	disability, fyi, mda telethon, opinions, usa, wtf	]
[	Current Mood	|	thoughtful	]

Sigh. It's that time of year again. Miss Crip Chick and Kara Sheridan are leading the online protest against this tiresome Weekend of Celebrating Pity through the Jerry Lewis MDA telethon by asking bloggers to write about charity, pity, the medical model of disability, the tyranny of the belief that we all need a cure, and the asshattery of Jerry Lewis. That's for tomorrow, Monday, the United States' Labor Day.

Jerry Lewis is the host of the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s Annual Telethon, a telethon that occurs every Labor Day to raise funds for cures by using disabled people as posterchildren. Disabled people protest the telethon because of its outdated, negative portrayal of disabilities. These images that the telethon promotes sticks in people’s minds and continually serve as a barrier for disabled people. Disability is not the problem, but rather the attitudes and barriers that society places on us.

What can we do? Protest. Write a Letter to the Editor. Tell people about the charity, medical, and social model of disability. Blog. Kara and I, along with the Disability Activist Collective (website coming soon) are organizing a campaign against the telethon and the charity model of disability. We need bloggers (not only disability bloggers but all! feminist, queer, woc, environmentalist, activists, great time to build alliances) who will agree to write about this! The campaign will work much like a blog carnival and will be heavily publicized in listservs and other sources of media.

And so is born:

Protest Pity

Welcome to the first annual Anti-Telethon Blogswarm (online gathering of bloggers to bring attention to an important issue). By stopping by, you’ve joined our protest against pity. We are excited to share with you the thoughts, feelings, and words of power expressed in the links below. This unique way to voice opposition will allow our chants to be heard across the world and we invite you to join us in solidarity! If you didn?t have time to write, didn’t know what to say, or weren’t sure how you felt before today, there are still opportunities to act. Post a comment, forward our link, write a newspaper, tell your friends, or educate someone in the community about why your life isn’t defined by pity. Thank-you so much for joining us and LEAD ON!

[	Tags	|	disability, news, usa, wtf	]
[	Current Mood	|	nauseated	]

If you read just one thing this week about disability in America, read this.

I briefly mentioned Navarro's case here but the above link has important and better detail than the news story I linked to.

[	Tags	|	disability, teevee, wtf	]
[	Current Mood	|	cynical	]

If You Are Easily Offended....

Filed Under: If You Are....

Then do not CLICK HERE!

This is exploitation television at its best!!!

The Brit's are adapting a Dutch reality TV show called Miss Ability, which has become the surprise hit of 2006 in the Netherlands

The show is a beauty contest complete with a swimsuit round. But all the contestants in the latest reality format to sweep ratings-hungry broadcasters have a disability. Contestants must display a "handicap visible to the eye."

Twelve women, including amputees and wheelchair-bound contestants, parade in nightgowns and bathing suits.

They star in short films demonstrating how they have overcome severe disabilities before submitting to a viewer vote.

Could this show fly in America?

We'll see!

A production company has already bought the rights to pitch it and produce it here!

Posted by on December 27, 2006 10:43 AM | Permalink

[	Tags	|	disability, news, usa, wtf	]
[	Current Mood	|	indescribable	]

no_pity

Should severely disabled kids be kept small?

6-year-old given hormones to stunt growth so parents can care for her

[	Tags	|	the internets, usa, wtf	]
[	Current Mood	|	tubes!	]

The Senate Commerce Committee deadlocked 11 to 11 on an amendment inserting some very basic net neutrality provisions into a moving telecommunications bill. The provisions didn't prohibit an ISP from handling VOIP faster than emails, but would have made it illegal to handle its own VOIP packets faster than a competitor's.

Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) explained why he voted against the amendment and gave an amazing primer on how the internet works.

There's one company now you can sign up and you can get a movie delivered to your house daily by delivery service. Okay. And currently it comes to your house, it gets put in the mail box when you get home and you change your order but you pay for that, right.

But this service isn't going to go through the interent and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and guess what you can order ten of them delivered to you and the delivery charge is free.

Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet?

( Read more for the tubes... )

Chad Allen: former drug-using teen heartthrob, lapsed Roman Catholic, gay activist and ... Christian missionary. The choice of the openly gay Allen as the lead actor in "End of the Spear," a new Christian-made movie about the real-life story of a son who makes peace with an Amazon tribe that killed his missionary father, has created a dilemma for moviegoers who want to support the movie's message, but not its messenger. "This story is perhaps one of the most precious, well-known mission stories of the last century," says Jason Janz, an assistant pastor in Colorado who brought attention to the issue on his fundamentalist blog, SharperIron.org. "I believe it was bad judgment to cast one of Hollywood's foremost gay activists in the leading role." But, at the same time, other religious leaders—including Jerry Falwell, who has publicly preached against homosexuals—are encouraging their congregations to see the movie.

The schizophrenic response from the Christian community is a blow to the movie's producers, who were hoping for a unified "Passion of the Christ"-type turnout. "It's disappointing," says Jim Hanon, the film's director and co-writer. "Especially because the message of the story is that you should reach out in love to people you disagree with."

Read the rest:

Religion: Love the Film, Hate the Sin? Christians Debate.

The unfortunate bird flew through an open window at an exposition center in the northern city of Leeuwarden where employees of television company Endemol NV have worked for weeks setting up more than 4 million dominoes in an attempt to break the official Guinness World Record for falling dominoes on Friday night.

Only a system of 750 built-in gaps in the chain prevented the bird from knocking most or all of the dominoes over ahead of schedule, "Domino Day" organizers were quoted as saying by the NOS news agency.

The bird was shot by an exterminator with an air rifle while cowering in a corner.

The organizers are out to break their own record of 3,992,397 dominoes set last year with a record of 4,321,000.

Mark Frauenfelder: The emails former FEMA head Michael Brown wrote during the Katrina crises would be really funny, if not for the fact that his mismanagement needlessly ruined the lives of so many people. OK, even then, they’re still funny.

“Can I quit now? Can I come home?” Brown wrote to Cindy Taylor, FEMA’s deputy director of public affairs, the morning of the hurricane.

A few days later, Brown wrote to an acquaintance, “I’m trapped now, please rescue me.” “In the midst of the overwhelming damage caused by the hurricane and enormous problems faced by FEMA, Mr. Brown found time to exchange e-mails about superfluous topics,” including “problems finding a dog-sitter,” Melancon said.

Melancon said that on August 26, just days before Katrina made landfall, Brown e-mailed his press secretary, Sharon Worthy, about his attire, asking: “Tie or not for tonight? Button-down blue shirt?”

A few days later, Worthy advised Brown: “Please roll up the sleeves of your shirt, all shirts. Even the president rolled his sleeves to just below the elbow. In this [crisis] and on TV you just need to look more hard-working.”

[	Tags	|	news, wtf	]
[	Current Mood	|	confused	]

Arkansas Man Kills Deer With Bare Hands in Bedroom

penguin001

Now, if the piece were an essay in the NY Times Magazine, or something, that line wouldn't be so... odd.  But, it's an article about an army recruiter, not an overwrought short story.  I don't have the critical mettle to be extensive or eloquent about this trend (and I do think it's something you'll see a lot lately in the Times), but this has to be proof that several of their reporters must be aspiring or rejected novelists.

[	Tags	|	livejournal, me, wtf	]
[	Current Mood	|	cranky	]
[	Current Music	|	Stupid Tiger Woods golf game that should be done by now	]

mock_the_stupid

Or someone who posts in a language community with dreams of being an interpreter after college.  Talks about Romance languages, gets told that actually there are more than 5 that are in that category... has a "really?  you must be talking about dialects." kind of response.  Also throws into original post a question about a Spanish phrase in a Christina Aguilera song (for chrissakes).  Without much detail given,  and having never heard the song, someone (who happens to be a federally certified English/Spanish interpreter) takes a stab at the unclear song snippet, provides translation as well.  To which original poster is all "I speak Spanish so I didn't need a translation, and that's not what it said but thanks anyway." (That was almost the exact response)

Yeah, they speak Spanish all right.  Except that in posting what they wanted clarified from the song, they wrote "puertoricano" (for Puerto Rican), which the commenter helpfully pointed out, should be puertorriqueño.  But hey, he/she speaks Spanish, so it's all good.

Someone in a book community wanted book recommendations.

I was wondering if you can recommend me any books. Since im really picky, its hard for me to find books. I do ocassionally read books that dont seem to interest me at first but they turn out good. But this week, i want to read a book that I would find really interesting.

. . .

I like books that are realistic, psychological (sometimes), and/or romantic. But im not a big fan of romance novels. I also like historical fiction. Anything really but I dont want a depressing book.

Oh, there was also a happy little "free iPod" post where it didn't belong, and ensuing backlash, and the usual always off-topic posting (no one EVER posts about actual FREE things) in nyc_for_free.

Maybe it's time for me to go to bed, when I am rambling and angry at the internet.

[	Tags	|	daily life, disability, wheelchair, wtf	]
[	Current Mood	|	aggravated	]

My wheelchair said its battery was charged when I started out today. Good enough.

I turned it off at the bus stop to put on my jacket.

Once turned on, it would not move.

Was pushed home 2 blocks by a kind stranger.

That could have gone much worse.

I have had lots of chair issues this past year, but none can really be attributed to the chair itself.  They've been the fault of people who are in charge of keeping it running, modifying it as needed, approving things.  My chair has been held hostage by bureaucracy, more or less.

There is definitely something wrong with the chair now.  And it's not a battery problem, because it's charged just fine.  Plugging a programmer device into the chair yields the following cryptic message: FAULT DETECTED E30 CPU EEPROM

How excellent.  It seems I am no longer immune to the electrical issues that plague so many powerchairs much earlier in life.  I've gone on about what a workhorse it's been over the last year and a half, but no more.  And once electrical issues start, I hear they never really stop.

It wouldn't be as frustrating if my manual chair were not so useless to me.  It's really just an indoor chair these days, not really good or safe outside.  And yet, I have a very busy week ahead...

Argh.

Blogs Attract Young, Wealthy Readers

[	Tags	|	news, wtf	]
[	Current Mood	|	amused	]

Wal-Mart Nixes 'Singles Shopping'

[	Tags	|	news, wtf	]
[	Current Mood	|	sad	]

Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

[	Tags	|	entertainment, news, wtf	]
[	Current Mood	|	seriously, WTF?	]

The New York Times
June 8, 2005
Paul Anka Is Back, 63 and Swinging (article link)
By LORNE MANLY

TORONTO, June 6 - Paul Anka knows what people will think.

Why would a teen idol turned Las Vegas crooner like him, who wrote early rock 'n' roll hits like "Diana" and "Put Your Head on My Shoulder," who gave Johnny Carson his theme song and Frank Sinatra "My Way," release an album stuffed with 14 swinging renditions of rock songs from stylistic opposites like Van Halen and Billy Idol?

Why court the derision that Pat Boone suffered with his album of heavy metal cover songs by taking on Nirvana's hoarse scream of teenage angst, "Smells Like Teen Spirit"?

On Sunday night here, to accept his induction into Canada's Walk of Fame, the 63-year-old Mr. Anka answered potential doubters the best way he knows: musically and infectiously. Backed by a 17-piece band, he tore into "It's My Life," transforming the hit by Bon Jovi into a brassy, swinging song that would not have been out of place at a Sinatra show.

"I ain't going to be just a face in the crowd," he sang. "You're going to hear my voice, I'll shout it out loud." He was greeted with the loudest ovation of the night.

The day before, in his Four Seasons suite, casually dressed in jeans and a light blue shirt unbuttoned enough to reveal more of a deep tan, Mr. Anka discussed why he took on "Rock Swings," his 120th album. "There will be an initial knee-jerk reaction to Anka doing Nirvana, and people will say nail him," he said. "But I want them to at least listen to it. And anyone astute enough and that has any integrity musically will look at it and go, you know what, goddamn it. I didn't want to like it, but it's there, the quality is there."

( Read more... )